The Hardest Kind Of Love
by bananafrappe
Summary: "Don't be a fool, Sakura. This is not a fairy tale. Did you really think that I would be so smitten during our few encounters? I am not in love with you."


The Hardest Kind Of Love

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><p><em>Yeah. This is another of my ItaSaku oneshots, and I hope it doesn't disappoint those of you who are here expecting another awesome success. That's what I'm hoping anyway. :) This is a not so happy story, as suggested by the title, and I am sad to tell you that if you wanted any of my jokes, there aren't any here. Not many anyway. <em>

_Fairly serious material here, though not as serious as some that I've written. It will be rated M, naturally, for sexual content and a small amount of bad language, as it tends to do, and this one is actually in the Narutoverse! Wow, right? Sorry for getting distracted again, by the way… I promise I am working on my bigger projects too. This just hit me out of nowhere and wouldn't leave me alone. I couldn't even sit down; I was walking up and down the hallway, talking to myself and planning the dialogue. XD I'm so weird. Anyway, on with the story._

_Disclaimer: I own nothing but an overly curly head of hair, a shitty car, and the heart of a man who is nowhere near as sexy as Itachi Uchiha. Naruto and his associates belong to Masashi Kishimoto, the amazing storyteller that he is._

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><p>"She is beautiful."<p>

The soft, velvety voice was both unwelcome and longed-for as it issued from the shadows beside the small bed, glowing red eyes lowered to the diminutive, deeply asleep form of the young girl slumbering under the covers there.

The woman standing in the doorway, only recently alerted to the man in the shadow's presence when she was woken out of a dead sleep by a familiar and extremely dangerous chakra signature in the room beside hers, folded her arms across her chest firmly and glared at the barely discernable form hiding behind the gloom of her daughter's room.

She stood in a small pool of light cast from a hastily lit lantern that had been set down out of the way in case a fight ensued… she knew that if it came to that, the intruder would have no problem fighting in the dark, but she would. Despite the nearly full moon in the sky and the clearness of the night, her enemy was more than capable of making such things useless.

She refused to acknowledge the fear that raced through her body even as she readied for a fight, shock at the man's appearance thrilling in her blood and apprehension for his intentions tensing all of her muscles; she couldn't afford to show even the smallest sign of distress in front of _him_.

"Get out."

The red, swirling eyes rose slowly from the young girl's body to look at the pink haired woman's form, gaze flicking over her posture and facial expression before the man they belonged to sighed. "So bitter… and so transparent. You cannot hide your feelings from me. Don't be afraid; I am not here to harm you or your daughter… but we _do_ have much to discuss, and I will not leave until we have come to some sort of understanding," the man said softly, looking one last time at the motionless child in the bed before standing.

The woman took a cautionary step backwards as the tomoed eyes approached through the blackness, slowly curling a fist in case she needed it. "I have nothing to talk to you about. I haven't seen you in five years, and I don't want to know why you came or what the circumstances entail. Just leave by the way you came, and there will be no need for any escalation."

The red irised eyes didn't blink, waver, or stop their approach, merely staying staidly locked with her narrowed green. "Idle threats will do you no good against me, Sakura. We both know that you cannot compare to me in a fight…" the man said before taking the final step into the light slitting through the lantern sitting on the small, roughly hewn table in the corner of the living room, revealing an angelically formed, porcelain visage, a firm, taut body structure cloaked in black, close fitting ninja raiment, but most notably of all, mid-back length, obsidian tresses tied back into a low ponytail, strands of it hanging around his blood red, deep-set eyes.

He observed the woman's position silently (she had retreated beyond a poorly stitched armchair when he had stepped into the room) before turning to close the door behind himself and walking slowly over to the small window set in the wall beside a small bookcase full of battered medical texts, the wooden walls of the small cabin creaking under the pressure of a light wind blowing outside.

"And I disagree with your statement. Your disappearance half a decade ago caused more problems than it fixed, and you have much to answer for. We _will_ talk this night," he assured her with his back facing her, and Sakura bristled.

"How _dare_ you. If I need to answer for anything, which I _don't_, the retribution will not come from _you_, Uchiha Itachi. You have no right to preach to me, no right to tell me what I _will_ do, and no right to intrude on the life I have created for myself and my daughter!" she cried out indignantly, emerging from behind the chair and stalking over to poke the stoic man at the window in the shoulder to reinforce her point.

Inciting her legendary temper and making her approach him seemed to be what the man had been waiting for, however, and as the smaller woman neared, her hand already rising to deliver a prod that would have knocked him back a few steps, he turned and dodged around Sakura's outstretched hand so quickly that she didn't even see him move. Before she knew it her back was against the wall and her offending wrist was caught in Itachi's larger grip.

She struggled against his hold, gathering chakra in her free fist in preparation for punching the man through the opposite wall and across the trickling river beyond that, but he quickly caught that up as well and joined it with her other, standing over her with a glint of displeasure in his otherwise bland gaze.

"If you continue to act this way, I will comply with your actions and fight with you. It will be unpleasant for both of us, much of your home and the lands surrounding it will be destroyed, and I will win, thereafter having the much needed conversation with you despite your struggle, even if I have to hold you down in the dirt where you fell," he stated without an ounce of insincerity, and Sakura glared up at him hatefully.

"Why is it so important to talk now? It's not like you couldn't have found me before now if you really tried. I no longer have any information that would be useful to the Akatsuki. I am not allied to any village, I have no enemies and I have no friends. I fight no one, and I fight for no one. Why are you here, five years later?" she queried hatefully, and his gaze narrowed, his fingers tightening.

"I had other obligations, of which you know very well. I did not follow you sooner because I had to allow you a chance to get some distance away, and by the time that Leader-sama and the rest of my comrades learned of your disappearance, you had hidden your tracks very well and we could find neither trace of your chakra signature nor any mention of your passing," Itachi revealed, looking deep into the angry eyes of the small woman he held captive, and she remained defiant for as long as she could before looking away, glaring determinately at the thatched ceiling above them.

All those years ago, the time before which Itachi spoke of, she had been captured by the terrorist organization known as Akatsuki, an attempt to draw her friend Naruto out of Konoha so the spirit being that was trapped within his body could be siphoned out. She had spent almost three months as their prisoner, tortured and beaten and stripped near to death whenever the members thought that she had been quiet for too long.

She had remained loyal to her village, never giving up any information no matter what they did to her, but had resigned herself to the fact that she would meet her end in the dungeons below the Akatsuki base, the hope for freedom long dead and gone.

Then, on a moonless, cloudy night late in the winter, a sudden attack was launched on the base, stemming from her former teammate Sasuke and his Hebi team, his goal to finally take revenge on his older brother for the massacre his clan had suffered at the elder's hands. In the confusion that ensued she had, with a great deal of pain, managed to wrestle herself free from her chakra bonds and escape the dungeons.

She had almost immediately been spotted by the man currently invading her home, and she had feared for her life. He had never taken part in her torture, he had never shown any interest in destroying her like the rest of his colleagues had; in fact, she had only ever seen him after he had initially captured her once, on a night that she preferred not to think of.

She didn't have to have been harmed irreparably by him, at least in an intentional manner, to be aware of the power his bloodline leant him though, making his body dangerous and his eyes even more so, and she had frozen in paralyzing fear.

Instead of the instant death she had expected at his hands, however, she had been looked at once and then ignored as he sped past on the way to take part in the fight. She knew why he had let her go, but she still didn't know why he hadn't even bothered trying to make it look like he had tried to stop her. He would have gotten in trouble for it if his superior, a frightening and extremely powerful man that she had never seen outside of shadows, had found out his involvement, or lack thereof.

And from what she understood, the retribution that the man dealt was terrible to behold.

As shaken as she had been by Itachi's indifference to her escape, she had continued her flight into the forests of the country of Rain desperately, knowing what she faced if she was caught, and did all that she was able to hide her passing. Using the monstrous strength that she had learned from the Hokage of her village, she had cut a swath through century old trees to deplete her chakra to the minimum amount required to stay alive and had then hidden it, also dirtying her hair until it was unrecognizable and stealing a cloak from the wagon of a merchant she passed on the road.

She hadn't truly expected to get away; her captors were numbered among the most talented, and most dangerous, ninja in the world, and shouldn't have had any problems catching up to her that first night. To her eternal surprise, she was six days into her bid for freedom, hiding out in a small town in Wind for shelter from a sandstorm, when she finally heard that they were looking for her.

She got the gist of it from the townsfolk; the local gossip said that mysterious and frightening men had been asking for information regarding a young girl, approximately sixteen years of age, with short pink hair, chakra reserves of great mass, and enormous strength.

Grateful for her disguise's effectiveness and also for her almost empty chakra assets, she had continued on her journey until she had come to an abrupt halt in one of the most northern regions of Rock, near a small village that had been almost overtaken by a bout of cholera. She had stopped long enough to offer her medical assistance, healing everyone except for the most elderly who were too near to death, and had then made preparations to leave.

The villagers had noticed her youth and the hardships she had fought through and had asked her to stay, however, having been impressed by her medical skills and the kindness she felt for total strangers. Tired of traveling and running every day, she had accepted and had built a small shack about a mile into the forest for herself, settling in with a fearful heart and dreading, every day, the Akatsuki finally discovering her.

And now that they seemingly had, she would have to run… _again_.

Her nose wrinkling as her lip curled in a sneer, she scoffed in obvious contempt. "Of course you didn't. You lot really should consider using a dog for tracking instead of that god awful sword your partner totes around," she bit out spitefully, and the man restraining her tilted his head in acknowledgement.

"True enough. The fact remains, however, that we could find no trace of your whereabouts and after several months of fruitless searching, Leader-sama saw fit to give up the endeavor on the whole and moved on to finding other ways to capture the Kyuubi. He told us to always keep an ear out for information about you, however, and about two weeks ago, Hidan returned to the base with the most interesting news."

A cold finger of discomforting panic crept up Sakura's spine, and she swallowed nervously as Itachi spoke. If Hidan, the most inept of the Akatsuki at information gathering and the subtler arts of tracking and stealth, had heard of her whereabouts, surely the others would not have been far behind.

"He told us of rumors circulating in the northern sector of Rock, tales of a benevolent angel descended from heaven that healed the sick and rested the weary without cost or denial. She turned none from her doorstep and never asked for a penny in return for her services, though no one knew what this selfless woman looked like. He had been interested in these stories, wondering as he does if he could find such a person and show them that such kindness had no place in this world, and had asked Leader-sama for permission to go and look for them. Leader-sama was interested as well, but for a different reason. He denied Hidan his request, but sent the rest of us out to inquire after this medic of great skill and repute. For all of the stories we heard, and all of the information that we gathered about this person, only two pieces were of any significance. Firstly, we heard that, apparently, thieves had come upon the village where she stayed one night and had attempted to lay siege to it. They had been defeated by this medic within minutes of their arrival, no matter that their numbers were in the forties and that she stood alone against them. In addition to this, we heard tell that this woman had a child, a small girl that she guarded jealously and protected from any and all who visited her. Despite the medic's best efforts, the girl was often seen playing outside, and the rumors tell of the girl's beauty, possessing of long black hair that shone in the sun, skin of the purest white… and eyes of scarlet."

Itachi's eyes hardened minutely as he revealed this, and Sakura's breathing grew labored. He continued despite her obvious discomfort and his clear interest in this information, taking a small step closer to her. "They call the girl a demon, a spirit from the ninth circle of hell holding the compassionate angel captive to this world, for she moves with unnatural speed when she runs and sees all, even on a moonless night unlit by stars. Naturally, this information was of great curiosity to Leader-sama… he assumed that this medic was a missing nin hiding from her village, a shinobi of high potential and ability that had nothing to lose but a child, which was talented in its own right, and he requested that one of us go to find this ninja of great skill and bring her back for him to see for himself, bringing the girl child as well or disposing of her as we saw fit if she became… difficult," he finished, and Sakura froze, staring up at him with wide eyes before narrowing them and struggling against his hold again.

"So he sent _you_? I'm sure you were pleasantly surprised to find out who it really was that you were wasting your precious time on," she snarled, and he raised an eyebrow at her futile behavior.

"I had already had my suspicions… and I volunteered."

Sakura stopped struggling at this, looking back at him in silent confusion. He didn't intend to leave her without knowledge of his declaration, however, and continued. "All of my comrades, barring Konan, were interested in the rumors; there was a powerful shinobi, a female, most notably, that had been requested captured by Leader-sama. Most had nefarious and not entirely virtuous intentions for wanting to come and find you, but I could not allow their interference, if my assumption of your identity was correct. Besides, your daughter was a mystery of great significance to me, and I wished to see her with my own eyes. The Sharingan is a rare gift, most especially because of the scarcity of those who have the ability to pass the capability on."

Sakura clenched her fists, once again trying to twist out of his grasp while at the same time not meeting his eyes directly. "The _Sharingan_… you are just like your brother. Ever prideful about your bloodline, always assuming that the best can only be numbered among the ranks of your noble family…" she spat, and Itachi's reciprocating growl made her flinch back slightly, unused to displays of any sort of emotion from the stoic man.

"I have _no_ pride in my family's abilities, and I am nothing like my otouto," he muttered darkly, his eyes flashing dangerously while the mangekyo within his gaze spun lazily. "And you cannot deny that the girl has it. I have seen the signature in her blood. I know the signs, despite the significance of her youth. She has the Sharingan, and I have come to find out why."

Sakura finally managed to pull her hands from his, though his purposefully slackened grip had allowed the maneuver, and staggered away, moving quickly across the room to take refuge behind a tall, sturdy desk covered with leaves and crushed powders. Her heart beat quickly and painfully in her chest as she watched the man regarding her from the corner carefully, her back straight and every muscle in her body tight even though he made no move to restrain her again.

This was what she had been afraid of as soon as she had felt him in the other room… "That is none of your concern. My daughter has nothing to do with the business your leader has sent you here for," she said hurriedly, and the crimson eyes narrowed balefully as the man's jaw clenched.

"It is every part of my concern, and she has everything to do with why I am here. Don't try to change the subject, please. Now…. There are three men of the Uchiha bloodline still alive this day, and one of them fathered the little girl in the room adjacent to this. I have no reservation on the subject of thinking that Madara would not have taken advantage of you, if you have ever met him in the first place… he no longer has any interest in such dealings. So tell me," he murmured as he slowly moved across the room, eyes locked with hers and never wavering.

"How old is she?"

Sakura shuddered and dropped her gaze to the cleanly swept floor, shadows long and dark from the light the moon cast through the window. "…Itachi, please…" she whispered into the near darkness, but his gaze held no mercy as he came up to stand beside her, fingers unrelenting as they lifted her chin to make her look him in the eye. "Answer the question, Sakura," he commanded, and she flinched at the hardness of his tone before she averted her eyes, shoulders drooping.

"She… she turned four five months ago."

Itachi's head drew back and he breathed in sharply, dropping his hand away from her face and taking a step backwards. "It is as I suspected then," he mused aloud, and Sakura's gaze snapped back up as he turned away. Fear for her daughter's life flowed through her body and she instantly leaped over the herb littered desk and placed herself between the much more powerful man and the door that led into her daughter's room.

"I won't let you hurt her, Itachi. Hate the last two of your surviving relatives and be content that you killed the rest of them yourself, but I will die before you touch a hair on my daughter's head. She has done nothing and you will not punish her for the blood in her veins."

His eyes widened in consternation at her determined comment before he let out a scornful scoff. "I already told you, Sakura… I am not here to harm her, nor you. I already thought that such a solecism had been appropriated as you have just confirmed, so my agenda is the same. And you should know better than to think that I would, with the knowledge that I have, try to kill her," he finished crisply, and Sakura remained as she was, suspicious of trickery.

"Why should I think that? You are not known for your pity or for your love of any of your family besides your brother, Itachi. My daughter is just another worthless member of your blood."

Itachi shook his head slowly, stepping up and reaching his hand up to brush a lock of her bangs back from her forehead softly, closing his eyes for a moment. "You know little of my past, and this is neither the time nor the place to speak of it, but I would never harm her for the same reason that you protect her," he muttered before opening his now grey eyes and bringing them up to hers again, though the fear his gaze inspired lessened little with the changed color.

"I am her father just as much as you are her mother."

Sakura's breath froze in her throat, the gravity of the moment and his words both too much to digest. She had hoped that he would assume that she had run into Sasuke sometime during her travels, unrestrained emotions had flowed, romance had ensued, and a child had come out of a one night stand. She should have known that he would guess the truth and would be intelligent enough to come to the right conclusion from the clues she offered up herself.

She, as a medic, should have been able to deny the feasibility of such a happening; she had only been with Itachi for one night. A shudder ran up her spine as she thought of what had happened that night, what this man had _done_ to her during her imprisonment with the Akatsuki, and she immediately diverted her thoughts to the more technical aspects of the act. They had only copulated once, and while all sessions of unprotected sex have a small chance at a chance pregnancy, the statistics against it had been astronomical. She had been tortured, underfed, unhealthy, and only fifteen; such a chance was so small it was almost invisible.

Inevitably, however, the arrival of her monthly visitor had been absent in the weeks following the… evening she had spent with the elder Uchiha brother, and she had done a checkup on herself one day after Hidan had finished torturing her and had forgotten to bind her chakra, discovering life growing in her abdomen.

Apparently she hadn't been the only one to think that her health was a little off, because a medic was sent down to do some minor healing on her only a day after she had discovered her condition, and while it seemed an innocent enough occurrence, she had used her still unbound chakra to hide the pregnancy anyway.

If those evil men had discovered that she was carrying Uchiha Itachi's child… especially if the man who had impregnated her found out… she didn't know what they would have done to her.

The road she had traveled once she was free was made all the harder by the knowledge that she was pregnant and that she would not be alone in knowing the identity of the father: a traitor, a homicidal maniac, and a menacing, extremely powerful ninja to boot. She had done her best to hide it as long as she could, knowing the weight of the genes that she carried. She could not return to her home with the offspring that she had; they would both be judged unfairly and shunned.

As such, she had gone to the farthest corner of the continent that she could and hoped that no ninja ever came that way. Luckily, no one that far north knew of things like kekkei genkai or forbidden and dangerous nin talents, so when her daughter's bloodline limit had emerged a few months ago, she had had no fear of being discovered.

She had forgotten, however, the power that fear of the unknown and the influence that her reputation carried… she should have hidden the girl better, or left the continent altogether, because now, the worst of all the people that could have discovered her had come to the knowledge of who she was, who her daughter was as well, and obviously had a lot to say about it.

The last person she had ever expected to face about her daughter's identity had been the father of her child.

Sakura shoved Itachi's hand away from where it trailed lingeringly down the side of her face, glaring with all the fury that she could muster. "You might have donated the semen that created her, but you are _not_ her father. A father would have been there for her when she came to me screaming in the middle of the night, her eyes bleeding and her irises turning red. A father would have helped her when the little boys in the village started calling her a devil. You… you are just a sperm donor," she yelled at him, years of bitterness at the unfairness of what she had gone through breaking through her voice, and Itachi stiffened indignantly.

"I could have been more if I had known you were pregnant. I had had my suspicions, before your escape, and I was the one that sent the medic to you. I had a feeling that you might be with child, and that you were aware of it, when Hidan complained that you had succumbed to begging for relief from his torture three hours earlier than usual. She came under the pretense of healing you, but you obviously had suspicions that she hadn't and hid your pregnancy. That, Sakura, is why I was not here for her. You hid my daughter from me, so the fault that I never had the chance to be a father is your own. Do not blame me for not being there when you never gave me a chance to be!" he shouted and slammed his fist into the wall, and the surface creaked ominously under the pressure.

Sakura flinched back at his angry outburst, cowering against the surface of the door. "I… you had other responsibilities. You said it yourself; Sasuke was more important. I thought that you would be angry and kill her. I didn't think that you would care if I didn't tell you, not with… with the plans you had," she muttered, and Itachi scoffed irately, running a hand through his bangs and sending her a glare.

"If you hadn't noticed, things didn't go as they were supposed to. Sasuke is no longer my number one concern, and neither am I his. Besides… do you really think that I wouldn't have changed my plans when I found out I had a child?" he queried sharply, and Sakura stared at the floor in silence for a few moments before glancing up at him, her eyes soft and her posture tight.

"Well, now you know. Is that enough for you? Can you leave now?" she asked, voice tired and resigned, but Itachi's expression didn't lessen out of its fury. "No. It is not _enough_. I cannot ignore the existence of my daughter now that I know about her, as you have so naively suggested. I will be a part of her life, and you will not stop me. You have already taken the first four years of her life from me. Do not assume to think you can take the rest as well."

Sakura snorted, hardening her eyes and stepping around the angry man. "As if you would help things. I can't imagine how having a murderer and an S-class criminal for a father would make her any more happy," she sniped as she walked over to the fluttering lantern on the table, and Itachi's shoulders tightened before he looked over at her, not moving from his position.

"Name calling does not benefit you or your intelligence. It is juvenile and below us both," he warned, and Sakura laughed in bewilderment, turning to look at him with sarcastic astonishment in her gaze.

"Don't like being confronted by the truth of what you are, Itachi? How surprising. And I thought that you prided yourself on truth and fairness. You can't deny what you've done; you are a homicidal, egotistical, untrustworthy rapist," she accused with lofty knowledge layering her voice, and the man across the room froze.

Itachi turned to face Sakura slowly, grey eyes so hard and cold that she immediately regretted her words, taking a step back from his intense inspection of her. He advanced across the cluttered floor with precise and measured steps, the soles of his shinobi sandals making no noise as he walked. He came to a halt inches from Sakura's trembling form and looked down on her with barely restrained wrath.

"Correct on all counts… but one," he said slowly, moving his hands up to grasp at the tops of her arms before pushing her back against the cabinet she had retreated towards harshly, making one of the bottles on top fall over with a metallic clank. "I have killed many people, regretted few of those murders, and have no shame in admitting that the skills that I possess have leant me more power than most of my peers retain. I betrayed my home. I commit crimes against both law and nature every day. But one thing I have never done is forced myself on a woman," he continued flintily, and Sakura forced herself to look offended, finding it hard to press through the fear.

"And I suppose that the four year old in the next room is just my imagination playing tricks on me," she retorted, her voice shaking, and Itachi growled ferally, tightening his grip on her arms and leaning down to meet her eyes.

"She came from us having sex, Sakura. I did not _rape_ you, and there is no point in pretending that I did," he snarled before pushing her back further into the wood she was held against to discourage the reply that was obviously on the tip of her tongue, shaking his head before averting his eyes and hanging his head.

"I will admit that what I did that night was not… orthodox. You were young, afraid, and extremely vulnerable. I should have exercised control. I should have stayed away in the first place, but… I had to talk to someone who cared about Konoha. Someone had to know, and you seemed like the only person I could tell. After that… I cannot excuse myself for taking advantage of the moment, but I did not rape you. Surely you know that," he prompted, looking back at her, and Sakura looked away over his shoulder, jaw set and chest rising unevenly.

The night that he spoke of had been a cold, dark evening two months into her imprisonment with the Akatsuki. She had spent most of the day being "experimented" on, poisoned and healed repeatedly by a red haired man who spoke in cold, dulcet tones and had even colder methods, and had barely been able to eat what was shoved through the door for her dinner, her stomach was twisting and roiling so badly.

She had been afraid that this was the end, that the missing nin from Suna had left some of his poison in her veins and had left her to die, but then the door of her cell had opened again and a mysterious figure cloaked in shadow had entered, picking her up from the corner of the room where she huddled in agonizing pain and bringing her out of the room and up a flight of dark stairs, then into another, much larger but also much nicer room.

The lights had been left off as the man laid her on a soft bed of blankets and had given her clean water and had cleansed her of the poison, but she knew who he was when she saw his eyes in the near darkness; the man who had intercepted her on her return from a successful mission, the older brother of her ex-teammate and the feared butcher of the rest of his clan had come to save her life. She hadn't known how long he took care of her, or even why he did, but when she had come back to her senses enough to sit up and eat the bread he had brought for her, he began to speak.

He spoke of things that could spell the end of the organization he worked for, the reasons behind their gathering of the tailed beasts and the mission they intended to accomplish. He warned her of the danger that the world would be in if they succeeded, and told her that she had to be strong. That she had to continue to resist as she had been and that, when the time came, she needed to escape and tell those that could help.

She had asked him why he was telling her, she remembered that. She had asked why, if he wasn't as he seemed to be, he didn't return and tell the Hokage himself.

He hadn't been able to meet her eyes as he explained the fatal illness that he suffered from and the need to let Sasuke have the revenge that he craved. He told her that he didn't expect her to understand, only to do him a favor that he didn't deserve and carry the message of hope for him.

She had been struck all at once by how selfless he seemed, by how much he was sacrificing, and had leaned forward and kissed him. It hadn't been meant to be anything more than a comforting gesture, something that she would share with someone she had no interest in but cared about, and she had leaned away after the chaste press of her lips to his. He had leaned with her, however, and continued the gesture more deeply and twice as intimately.

She had been shocked by his actions, by his hands as they wrapped around her thin body and dragged her against his chest and by his fingers as they traveled over her still forming curves. She had meant to pull away, to reprimand him for thinking her gesture had been more than what it was, but had lost her train of thought more and more the longer that he kissed her, ending with her loosening herself and kissing him back.

Everything had blurred together afterwards. She remembered that he had been heavy when he had lain on top of her as their kissing turned horizontal, but that he had been gentle when touching her body. He hadn't fully removed their clothes, only taking off the bare minimum that would allow them to join, and she recalled him apologizing before thrusting his manhood into her.

The reason had become clear immediately afterwards when she had nearly screamed from the pain of the entry, and she had begged him to stop, pleading with him to withdraw because it hurt too much. He had not, but had stilled and given her time to adjust instead, kissing her softly and repeatedly while thumbing away her tears. After a few minutes of whimpering from the ragged, sharp pain of the invasion she had quieted, left only with a feeling of fullness and a strange need to have the man holding himself still on top of her move within her.

He had noticed the moment that she did and, with a sense that he had been holding himself back more than she realized, had driven himself in and out of her body with a calculated vigor that had clouded her vision with pleasure and had ripped cries of passion from her that must have echoed through the base. It had been quick, no more than ten minutes, and after he came he took her back to her cell without speaking any further.

She had lain awake for hours afterwards, shocked stupid by what had just happened. Had she really lost, no… _given_ her virginity to Uchiha Itachi? Yes, she had. How could she have done that? She didn't know, and if she had a mirror she knew she wouldn't have been able to look at herself, even without the bruising on her neck that hadn't been there before meeting with Itachi.

What confused her more than her actions, however, had been the fact that she didn't feel any hate or loathing towards him for taking away the last pure thing she had. She felt only the tenderness that she had when talking about his worry for his brother with him, and it scared her. Did she seriously _like_ an S-class criminal, a man that had just had sex with her with no indication that she had wanted it besides giving him a platonic kiss? Well, it's not like she had fought him, but… that didn't mean that she liked him.

She just respected some of his decisions.

This was what she convinced herself of, anyway, and since she didn't see him again besides the night she escaped, she didn't ever think about those soft feelings again, only remembering the pain and the fact that he had stolen her virginity.

Now, she was being forced to remember. He was making her realize, to recall in vivid images that she did not want to see, that he had not done what he did against her will. She had not been wise to the ways of men as a fifteen year old girl, just growing into her body and realizing that sex was not a bad thing, and had not realized that kissing a lonely, tortured man who was in the height of his sexual potency would make him suddenly grasp that he had a female alone with him.

She knew now, of course, and understood that what she had done was not as innocent as she had thought at the time. Technically, she had initiated the occurrence, and she had not told him she didn't want it. The excuses she had been telling herself ever since her daughter had been born were lies; this man had not raped her.

"I know… I know. I'm sorry. It's just been hard, and I love Regen more than I can describe. She's all that I have anymore, and just thinking that you were coming to mess that up…" Sakura sighed out, giving the Itachi's shoulder a tight lipped smile, and his eyebrows furrowed.

"Regen?" he queried, and Sakura looked at him strangely before gasping in realization. "I forgot… you wouldn't have known. That's what I named my daughter," she explained, and Itachi got a faraway look in his eyes.

"Regen…" he mouthed before nodding, looking back at Sakura understandingly. "Short for regenerate, I assume. It is fitting," he allowed as he released his grip on her arms and stepped back. Sakura nodded as she rubbed her upper arms to get the blood flowing in them again, leaning back against the dresser and considering the male in front of her.

"You were right. It was wrong of me to not alert you, especially when it obviously matters so much to you. What do you expect me to do about it now though? We have a life here, a stable, good life, and you sweeping in with your Akatsuki cloak flying in the breeze will do less than no good."

Itachi snorted, fingering one of the ends of the ponytail that fell over his shoulder as he gestured significantly around himself with his other hand. "You live in a hovel in a perpetually freezing forest. Regen can get no shinobi training here, she obviously has no peers that accept her, and you do not make enough money from the occasional healing to support both you and her healthily. Though from what I have heard, you do not even accept money for those… and what happens when she starts to ask questions about her father, if she hasn't started already? Will you want my presence then? No, this will not do. You two are coming with me when I depart from here, and we can raise Regen together somewhere better for her," he stated, and Sakura raised both of her eyebrows.

"Suddenly you know about everything that goes on in my life here? What do you think that immersing our daughter in this infernal war is going to accomplish? She will get training for her skills, she will have friends, but she will also be targeted and have a greater chance of dying in not just crossfire, but as the result of a pointed attack. No, my daughter will not be a ninja, and we are not leaving. Besides, I highly doubt that your leader would be very accepting of you toting around a kid while assembling the most terrible weapon that this world has ever seen."

Itachi scowled minutely, narrowing his eyes in response to her dismissal of his plans. "What Leader-sama doesn't know won't kill him, and as long as he is kept in the dark, I won't be killed either. It is not difficult to hide the truth from him, despite the inferiority of the secret being kept, in this case. I have succeeded for many years. I would be required to bring you before him as he has requested, but it is my belief that he intends to merely recruit you to our cause as a medic this time, not imprison you. And as for _our_ daughter not getting training," he said, putting heavy emphasis on the word.

"She doesn't have a choice. The Sharingan is not something that can be allowed to be passed off as a side effect and ignored; it needs to be used or it will suck the life out of her faster than using it will. This is exactly why I need to be in her life; you do not know how to advise her on the power she possesses, and she will need to know, especially with the potential she obviously has. Her Sharingan manifested at four years of age; she will be very powerful, much more so than Sasuke, me, and even Madara. She will need proper training. Besides, did you really think that hiding out here would keep her from harm? The war is everywhere, Sakura. You can't hide forever, and you can't shelter Regen from the world."

Sakura wrinkled her nose, looking away from his unmoving form and at the shivering shadows cast from the lantern on the closed door of her daughter's room. "And what, am I supposed to just let you take over from here? You get your way, sweep Regen away with me as a tagalong, and just let you turn me in to the Akatsuki while you hide _my_ daughter away and teach _my_ daughter to fight and kill and deceive?" she asked heatedly, and it was Itachi's turn to raise his eyebrows.

"Did you expect different? Did you want me to suddenly realize that you are everything that has been missing in my life and place you directly at my side? I apologize, but while you are the mother of my child and are very important to her, I am not of the same sentiment. I will not take her from you, and I will not let you be killed if there is anything that I can do to prevent it, but I will give no illusions out on the front of us being together, much less married. As far as what I feel for you, my gratitude for your caring for our daughter for so long is the only thing worth mentioning at the moment," he explained with little care in his tone, and Sakura shrank back as if slapped.

That wasn't what she had meant, but he hadn't needed to be so… cold. The feelings that had been rekindled within her this evening, ones that she had tried to hold back for the sake of her sanity, were stung and hurt by his icy denial of feeling even remotely the same. She shouldn't have expected him to, but…

Surely he felt _something_.

Pride smarting, Sakura did the only thing she knew how to do when injured by something she didn't know how to deal with… she bolstered her courage and lashed out.

"Well, thank _god_ for that," she replied sarcastically, waving an uncaring hand through the air and deftly ignoring the stiffening of Itachi's shoulders. "I wouldn't want anyone to think that you actually had any real emotions. That would ruin the reputation that you've built up. No, I understand the part I will play. You can be the vicious, emotionless man with a circumstantial child and I will be the supportive but largely disregarded woman who cared for your daughter in your absence. We can even have separate houses. God forbid that anyone think that we were sleeping together; the truth that I had sex with you once is bad enough, but having people think that I did all the time… I honestly don't think that I could survive the rumors, much less have it be true," she finished, smiling sardonically across the room at the father of her child, and her sniping seemed to have more of an effect than she had thought that it would; not only did Itachi seem to be distracted from the subject and walked back over to stand over her menacingly…

His Sharingan had activated again.

"I am sorry, Sakura… but if I am to understand what you are implying with that comment, I would have to think that you found our night together… unsatisfying," Itachi muttered under his breath, glaring at her in a simultaneously condescending and affronted manner. Sakura let his ire over her words roll off, smirking at the enraged male without realizing that she was playing a very dangerous game with a _very_ prideful man.

"I'm implying nothing, Itachi. I'm _saying_ it. For a girl's first experience, ten minutes of sweating and uncomfortable contortions are hardly satisfactory. For a member of the Uchiha clan, I was disappointed. Drawing from what I've heard in dark corners, Sasuke does much better. Perhaps he should be the one going around impregnating girls he puts his trust in," she teased, and a real growl emitted from the man she was baiting, his self-importance wounded by the announcement that his younger brother was a better lover than he was.

"If I remember correctly, during those tenminutes that you were _so_ uncomfortable, you moaned and begged loudly enough to wake up the whole base… and it wasn't my otouto's name you were screaming when you came so hard that you ripped a piece of my headboard off in your hands. Odd behavior for such _un_satisfactory activity, no?"

Sakura snorted, putting her hands on her hips and glaring right back at him. "While you are remembering things, please kindly recall that I was a _virgin_. You barely gave me enough time to stop bleeding before obviously having your first lay in years, and it hurt. Forgive me for being in pain while you let your self-pity and abandonment issues out on me," she snapped and tried to shoulder past him so she could walk away, but he grabbed onto her wrist painfully hard and dragged her back to face him.

He leaned down until he was an inch from her face once she was facing him again, anger and injured vanity written all over his face. "Perhaps I need to remind you of what you felt that night… it would do you some good to be reminded of your pleas for me to fuck you _harder_ while being put in your place at the same time," he threatened caustically, the dirty word issuing from him like a dark promise, and Sakura shuddered in response before weighing her options carefully.

If she backed down, she would lose some of her pride and the validity of the point she had been trying to make but would avoid the potential for him actually being serious and having him snap, drag her to the nearest flat surface, and validate his own point by unnecessarily proving that he was as proficient at the fine art of lovemaking as he claimed.

But if she didn't…

The draw of winning a fight against Uchiha Itachi, despite the not entirely unattractive hazard of having sex with him again, was too much for her. So, instead of looking down and giving in, she glued a confident smirk to her lips and tilted her head antagonistically. "Tell yourself whatever you have to to help yourself sleep at night, Itachi. You have nothing to prove to me because you have nothing to prove. I'm going to go ahead and call your bluff, because I already know your hand; I've played with you before, and I'm not folding," she commented snarkily, but immediately regretted it as a cruel and meaningful smirk lifted his lips.

He tsked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, shaking his head slowly and tightening his grip on her wrist. "Oh, _Sakura_…" he crooned, reaching his other hand up and stroking the length of her jawline with a lightly placed fingertip. "You may have played with me before, but you seem to have forgotten how well I maintain my poker face. Your cards are inferior to mine, you have lost, and now it is time to pay."

With that said, his eyes flashed brightly in the near darkness and behind her, the lantern went out.

The next second the wind had been knocked out of her, her back thrown against the rumpled covers of her bed after being whipped through the living room and the air of her bedroom faster than she had been able to see, and her bedroom door closed solidly the next.

Struggling to get her breath back and sit up at the same time, she regained her posture just in time to see Itachi stalking around the edge of the bed towards her, something voracious and primeval in his gaze that scared the bejesus out of her. Breath heavy and eyes wide, she scrambled backwards to escape him, but he was faster.

For the second time within moments she was on her back, but this time she wouldn't be able to sit up again, her wrists held down by a pair of larger, stronger hands than hers and her body restrained by a very hard, definitively male chest.

She oofed lightly as more air was forced out of her lungs and glared up at a suddenly very close pair of satisfied eyes, struggling against his grasp. "Get off of me. I didn't tell you last time, which paved a long, painful and extremely difficult road, but I'm not staying quiet this time. I don't want this." She was surprised when Itachi merely raised an eyebrow and leaned down to run his nose over the shell of her ear, breaths of labored air puffing erotically against her neck.

"You lie…" he purred, and when she began to protest bit down on the sensitive skin underneath her ear, shaking a gasp from her lips. "Don't make things worse for yourself by adding more lies to the pile… I still have to extract my winnings from you, and I will take more for every falsehood you speak. You may not be the brightest of all of the nin I have ever met, but I do not doubt your intelligence. You knew when you stood up to me that there was a significant chance that this would happen. You want this, and you cannot deny it. Now be a good sport and take it like a big girl," he said confidently, chuckling under his breath as Sakura's expression confirmed his words, before cutting off any chance she had of arguing further by releasing one of her hands, grabbing and turning her chin, and covering her mouth with his.

She fought against him initially. She struggled against his hands when they moved down her body to grope at her breasts and her bottom through her clothes, she tried her best to break away from the bruising pressure of his lips. She fought to push him away, despite the tight hold he had on her and the fact that he was much too large to be moved, but when his hand slipped beneath the thin top that she wore, his fingers tracing along the skin of her belly and slowly making their way up her rib cage to hold the fullness of her breast in his palm, the breath was stolen from her lips and the fight right along with it.

After that she could do nothing but press him closer to her body, anxious to taste him further when he roughly shoved his tongue past her lips and desperate to feel every inch of the hardness that he pressed against her thigh. She bucked against him urgently when he ran his hand along the seam of her womanhood, her breath heavy under his watchful and conceited gaze, and when he moved to tug his shirt from the waistband of his pants, Sakura couldn't disrobe fast enough.

Itachi seemed surprised by her readiness as she reached for him after he had shrugged out of his shirt, lying down on top of her again and apparently relishing the friction of her bare skin against his if his quiet growl of approval was anything to be judged by.

"From the way that you are acting, I find myself thinking that you are enjoying yourself, Sakura…" he muttered as he dragged his lips along the column of Sakura's throat, smirking against her skin when a groan of restless frustration reverberated in her chest.

"Don't read too far into it. Chemical reactions and hormonal influences can be blamed," she explained as nonchalantly as she could manage, but with Itachi's fingers tracing lightly up the skin of her inner thigh teasingly and his teeth nipping at her collarbone, it came out sounding more like a barely believable excuse.

He noticed, looking up at her from his position with a grin lifting his lips up. "Is that so? I find that hard to believe, with how fast you just shed your nightclothes and with how wet you already are."

Sakura scoffed half-heartedly, watching as he leaned down to lave his tongue across her clavicle. "You hold yourself in too high of esteem. We haven't been doing this long enough for me to be wet enough to comment on," she stated scornfully, but gasped tightly when Itachi's hand flashed up from her leg and stroked along the juncture of her legs, his middle finger sliding into her without difficulty due to his correct assumption.

"It would seem that I don't hold myself in high _enough_ esteem. You are correct, we haven't been intimately minded long enough… so you must have been thinking of this long before I threw you down on your bed. So unbecoming…" he reprimanded mockingly while pulling his finger in and out of her agonizingly slowly, and Sakura bit at her bottom lip, her gaze moving to the ceiling as the warmth centered in her stomach built with each stroke of his digit.

He was displeased by this, apparently, because as soon as her eyes left him he reached up to grasp her chin and forced her to look on while he fingered her, sliding his forefinger in to join his middle and thrusting them forcefully into her again and again.

"You will watch, Sakura, and when you come, you will call my name. Disobey and suffer," he growled, eyes heavy with sincerity, and Sakura shivered at the threat, swallowing with difficulty before nodding meekly. He smirked in response before releasing her chin and running his free hand down the length of her torso, circling each of her nipples with his thumb with a hungry sort of appreciation in his gaze.

"You have grown considerably since we were last in such a position, and if it is not unappreciated, I must say that this is not a disappointment. I would never have known you had borne a child, with how you look now…" he muttered lasciviously, voice deeper and more husky in his arousal, and Sakura pressed up against his touch pleadingly, the combined force of his words, his hand's ministrations, and his very presence too much stimulation for her tightly wound body to handle.

He smirked more at her silent plea, thrusting his fingers within her even faster and continuing to examine her body, dipping his thumb into her navel and seemingly having difficulty swallowing as well.

"I have thought before about how much you might have changed since that night. I imagined that you would have filled out more, but _this_… you are more than I expected to find. I will enjoy being reacquainted with you," he said, trailing the very tip of his finger down her abdomen and through the patch of curly pink hair at her apex before lightly pressing it to her clitoris, and with a cry of surprised pleasure, Sakura's back shot off of the bed and her vision went black, spots of bright white decorating the spectrum of her gaze.

She clenched around Itachi's fingers repeatedly, drawing them further into her body with each contraction, and his eyes danced with male pride and voracious lust. "Say it, Sakura… acknowledge me…" he whispered while continuing his finger's motions, drawing her orgasm to new heights that she had never felt before, and she struggled to comply through her breathless gasps of pleasure, fingers clenching in the sheets beneath her and tearing holes in the material that she realized, blearily, she would have to repair later.

"Ita… oh _god_… please, please… Ita… chi… yes…" she choked out, but he shook his head, dire warning shining in his gaze. "My full name, Sakura. Say it _now_."

Struggling to pronounce anything but breathless pleas for mercy from her still raging climax and unintelligible gasps of passion, Sakura finally managed it, forcing out his name in a strangled yelp of pure rapture.

"Oh god, _Itachi_!" she cried out, and Itachi withdrew his fingers from her a second later, letting her collapse back onto the sheets while raising his hand to his lips and licking at the juices there. All that could be heard for the moment was Sakura's heavy breathing and the call of owls and other nocturnal birds of prey in the dark of the night outside the house, but the silence was interrupted by the bed creaking not too much later.

Sakura cracked an eye open to see what Itachi could be doing, wondering why he would suddenly dismount the bed if he had not yet found his release, but she needn't have worried; he was kicking off his sandals and shedding his pants as quickly as he was able, movements still calculated even in his mindless desire.

She watched him undress in silence, marveling over his body, or what of it she could see in the light coming through her window. He was a specimen of perfection, hard muscle chiseled seemingly directly from stone but possessing a grace and soft beauty that spoke of gentler, less harsh things as well.

He was not as thin or as pale as he had been five years ago, she noticed belatedly; his illness was obviously not a concern to him or his health any longer. He had large, powerful hands, a straight, rigid posture that testified to his upbringing and pride, and ever aristocratic features.

But what she paid the most attention to, at the moment, was the part of him that he was most concerned with pleasing.

She paled visibly as she looked on him, her breath catching in her throat and making it hard to even see straight. She might not have seen it last time, and she might not have been knowledgeable about the male anatomy at that time, but…

Surely he hadn't been that… _big_.

He noticed her fixation and raised an eyebrow at the expression she wore, walking back over to the bed and seating himself on the edge. "You look surprised. Why? You are not unfamiliar with me," he queried curiously, and Sakura shrugged, looking anywhere she could except at his lap.

"I just… I don't remember you being quite so… uh…" she trailed off, and he laughed quietly before moving his legs around and sitting up on his knees, thereafter crawling over her prone body and kneeing her legs apart so he would have room to kneel between them.

"My body has not changed in the past years; I was done with my growth when you laid with me. I cannot blame you for not noticing, as you were more preoccupied with… other worries. Do not be concerned; you will not feel the same pain as you did last time," he assured her while scooting up the length of her body and adjusting her position beneath him gently, and Sakura rolled her eyes.

"I'm not nervous. I was just surprised," she explained shortly, and Itachi nodded while sliding his hand underneath her backside, lifting her hips while encouraging her to wrap her legs around his waist with his other hand.

"Naturally. It matters little, however, so…" he prompted, and Sakura looked up at him with a pucker between her eyebrows. He looked right back at her for a few moments before smirking and nodding his head between them. "Take it and position it, if you would. My hands are otherwise occupied."

She stared at him incredulously for a few more seconds, blinking and incomprehensive. The first time they had had sex, he had not given her an opportunity to be comfortable or the option to take him in hand and do what she wanted with him. Did he… had he changed in the years she hadn't seen him? Did he feel something for her?

Her heart pounding in her chest and a strange ache persisting somewhere in the same position, Sakura reached between her body and the form of the man above her, wrapping her fingers around his manhood and squeezing the soft, yet hard flesh gently. A hiss of pleasure leaked between his lips and his eyelids clenched shut, his shoulders tightening in response to the bare pressure she put on him, and she raised a mocking eyebrow at his strained expression.

"Ah, not as unaffected as you pretend…" she derided, and Itachi's eyes snapped open to glare at the woman beneath him.

"Stop teasing and I'll show you how wrong you are," he growled, and Sakura shrugged, stroking the length of him slowly while thumbing his head, and the hiss became an unrestrained groan, his head drooping and his arms shaking.

Sakura regretted her taunting, however, when he had gathered the strength to lift his head again. His glare was now a full blown glower of unmet retribution, his Sharingan wheeling so fast that the shape was lost and his breath quick and heavy.

"Continue in this manner, Sakura…" he warned acerbically, leaning down and placing his face less than an inch from hers. "And I will no longer care for your interests. I will shove your hand out of the way, force myself into your body, and run you so ragged that you will regret mocking me for the rest of your days. Now stop your infernal antics and position me, or I will do it for you and you will _not_ like it."

There was no hint of conscience, doubt, or even pity in his gaze as he glared down at her, awaiting her compliance; there was only assurance of the truth of his words and a cruel sort of expectance, almost like he hoped she would continue to resist so he could do as he said he would and, in so doing, teach her who was master here.

Unfortunately for him, she wasn't as brave when standing up to dangerous men she was entangled intimately with as she was when on the battlefield fighting those same men, so she gave in without a fight, averting her eyes submissively and sliding his manhood along her until the head of him was resting against her still tender and sensitive entrance, thereafter releasing him and dropping her hands to her sides.

Itachi smirked at her easy acquiescence before leaning down and placing his lips beside her ear, both of his hands moving down to grasp her hips tightly. "Good girl, Sakura… I'm so proud of you. I'm afraid I still have to punish you, though. You have shown a shocking lack of humility and restraint regarding my presence this evening, and you _will_ learn to respect me… even if I have to keep you up all night to ensure it," he whispered hotly in her ear and, before she could even think of anything to say in response, thrust his hips forward with the force of a battering ram, full seating himself within her body and loosening a shocked cry of pleasure from her lips that shook the rafters.

He did not wait for Sakura to adjust, since she didn't seem to be in any pain, and immediately pulled back and thrust again, the strength he used just as firm as the first and making the headboard of the bed the two lay on smack against the wall with a dull wooden thud.

Sakura cried out again in response to his motion, hands moving up to clutch at his forearms and mouth gaping open as she tried to regain the breath he had knocked out of her. The memories that she had of the other time that she had been with Itachi like this, the night he had gotten her pregnant, were vivid in her mind's eye; she remembered that he had seemed unstrained while he labored over her, his movements precise and even despite the obvious pleasure in his gaze.

He had not been gentle, not by any account, but he had been in control. He had not teased her, dominated her as if he thought her his possession, or seemed affected in any way. He had not shown emotion or even made a sound beyond grunts of exertion and a barely audible moan let out when he climaxed.

But now, as his thrusts only gained momentum and his fingers dug grooves into her hips with each ground shaking slam of his pelvis against hers, savage excitement and conceited understanding shone from his gaze while he watched her with a voracious smirk lifting his mouth, his glistening chest heaving as his breath became labored.

A constant stream of goading reprimands and cocky assumptions came from him while he buried himself deeper within her with each thrust, gloating reminders of her position and the fact that she was not supposed to be enjoying herself rasping between grinning lips every time he had enough breath, or time between the passionate groans reverberating from his own throat, to give them.

Sakura had little concentration to dedicate to consideration of the matter, as Itachi consumed most of her awareness with his larger than life persona and the fact that he was resolutely pounding her body into an incredibly satisfied puddle, but between him suddenly switching positions by turning her over, pushing her head down until her face was buried in her pillow, and continuing to ravage her from behind and the second and third orgasms he brought her to, she wondered if the differences meant something.

He had been almost clinical during their last encounter, but this time, he seemed to have lost control. He readily showed how much pleasure he felt, he let his anger and his righteous vengeance out in the most base of ways… for god's sake, he was having sex with her to prove that she was wrong about him!

From everything that she had ever heard, Itachi didn't care about what people thought about him. He was a master of his own emotions, of every aspect of his life, and to see him so bereft of that rumored control… he must feel something different for her. There had to be something. Could he, over the times that he had been with her, have felt something for her and was just denying it? Did he like her?

Did he… _love_ her?

Her musings were interrupted when Itachi pulled from her body abruptly. She knew he hadn't come, despite the fact that it had been almost an hour since he had first entered her, because when he turned her around to face him again, his manhood still stood erect, his forefinger and thumb wrapped around the base of it firmly.

Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead, his teeth were gritted together tightly, and his shoulders shook as he pulled her closer to him, making it obvious that he wanted her to do something from his pointed nods down at his crotch. She couldn't guess what he meant from the gesture, however, and merely gazed up at him stupidly.

He sighed in annoyance, a fine shiver shaking his bangs, before he took his free hand, twined it into her rumpled hair, and forced her head down until she was facing his hardness. "I assume that you don't want to get pregnant again, so I cannot release within you. I am close to my ending, however, and I do not spill my seed needlessly. Relieve me with your mouth," he growled through clenched teeth, and Sakura scoffed incredulously.

"I'm not going to suck your dick, Itachi. You wanna come, do it yourself," she spit out, trying to shake his hand out of her hair and back away, but he merely tightened his grip and held her there, his gaze dangerous again.

"You act as though you have the choice to refuse. You have two options, and one of them is going to be appropriated in the next few seconds. Either you open your mouth and _suck my dick_, as you so eloquently put it, or I throw you down, enter you once more, and take the chance of getting you pregnant in stride. I have no problem accepting the role of raising two children, but I suspect you would not be so amiable. Either way, chose quickly; my patience and control are thin, and if I chose for you..." he left off ominously, his eyes holding nothing but seriousness and the need to reach his climax, and Sakura couldn't find enough nerve to stand up him again. She had no desire to do as he asked, or more like demanded, but…

He was right. She really didn't want to get pregnant again; the morning sickness and back pains weren't so bad, but the fourteen hours of labor weren't something she wanted to experience again too soon.

Faced with the only decision that she could live with, Sakura sent the man above her a glare before leaning forward and, reluctantly, opening her mouth to admit the head of his manhood past her lips, applying suction to her action while wrinkling her nose in distaste at the taste of herself on him.

Itachi's reaction was immediate, his grip tightening in her hair and a grunt leaking between his firmly pressed together lips. Raising an eyebrow, she sent a quick glance up to his face while sliding a hand up his thigh to wrap her fingers around his length, stroking up and down the expanse she hadn't reached yet. His eyes had closed as soon as she had breathed on him and he was inhaling heavily through his nose, every muscle in his torso tense and contracted.

Pleased by the effect she had on him despite her position, Sakura turned her attention back to her task and slipped her tongue along the rigid skin she was preparing to take into her mouth, rounding his head teasingly before forcing as much of him into her mouth as she could without gagging.

A choked gasp ripped from Itachi's throat at the action, his formerly free hand moving to grasp desperately at the back of her neck, and with that encouragement, she smirked against his flesh and withdrew, only to plunge him back into her a second later.

He didn't last long under the varying pressure she placed on him, the alternating between too well placed pressure and having his already overly sensitized manhood shoved down a tight throat too much for his control. Sakura couldn't have been on her hands and knees in front of him for more than a minute when the man she was pleasuring seized abruptly, his fingers spasming in her hair and his hips thrusting forward unconsciously while libidinous moans slipped from him.

Only a second afterwards he spilt his seed into her mouth, his length throbbing against her lips and his back bowing over her as he held himself within her, and once the last of his semen had trickled from him he pulled back and, surprisingly, collapsed to the side.

Sakura didn't particularly want to swallow the mouthful of come that she had swirling around her tongue, but she didn't think Itachi would react well if she spit it out and, while it was a little bitter and the knowledge of what she had done turned her stomach… she had an abnormal desire to have at least that part of him with her and swallowed, barely restraining the urge to lick her lips so she wouldn't look like she had actually enjoyed the taste of him.

Mouth empty, conscience whirling and bed mysteriously occupied by a suddenly reposed man that she had expected to leave as soon as he was done, Sakura lay down next to him cautiously, curling in on herself and turning to face him.

Itachi had his arm thrown over his eyes as he lay among the rumpled sheets and misplaced pillows, chest rising and falling heavily and one leg propped up on the edge of the bed. His hair, which had come unbound a little during their strenuous activity, was draped over the blanket beside her, and she reached out a hesitant hand to finger one of the strands, her fingers shaking as she stoked the silk soft tress.

Feeling the pull against his scalp, Itachi opened a languid eye to watch her before closing it again, the smirk that belonged solely to his bloodline lifting the corner of his lips up even while he gasped for air. "So? Was your second time with me just as _uncomfortable_ as the first?" he asked snarkily, and Sakura rolled her eyes, dropping the piece of his hair that she held and tucking her arm beneath her head.

"Don't be an ass. You know I was just trying to bait you," she sighed out tiredly, and he shrugged. "All the same, I hope the performance was up to par with your other experiences."

Sakura shifted uncomfortably in response to his assumption, twitching her mouth to the side and averting her eyes from his own hidden pair. "I… I haven't had any other experiences," she admitted quietly, and Itachi uncovered his eyes again, turning his head to look at her appraisingly.

"And why would that be? Nostalgia, perhaps?" he queried with interest, and Sakura kept her eyes down. No, she had not had sex with anyone else. Despite what she had been telling herself about what had happened the first time, she had been unwilling to share that part of herself with the all too willing young men in the village. She had felt that it was no longer hers to give… that it belonged to the person who had taken it first.

Thoroughly embarrassed by her beliefs, she snorted half-heartedly, tracing the edge of one of the tangled sheets she lay on. "Hardly. I am a single mother. I have had other concerns."

The look that Itachi gave her told her that she had not been convincing enough to fool him with her paltry excuse, but he let it go. "Be that as it may, please do not think so little of me as to assume that I have forgotten what got us into this position. I will be taking Regen with me when I leave, and you will be coming with me as well," he commented, and Sakura sat up on her elbow to look at him with one eyebrow raised.

"Right. I'll play doctor with the most dangerous men in the known world while my daughter stands the risk of being found out. I don't know what your much beloved Akatsuki's standing on illegitimate children is, but I doubt it's sunny," she said sarcastically, waving a hand through the air, and Itachi tilted his head consideringly, eyeing her expression with careful consideration.

"They will not find out about her, but if they do, I am not too concerned about it as long as Leader-sama is not informed. We are lonely men, condemned to the companionship of criminals of our own sex, and we have all had our moments of need; mine is not the first illegitimate child that has cropped up, and Regen will not be the last. A more pressing concern, however, is your reaction to my news that you are being forcibly drafted into the Akatsuki. As much as you obviously hate them, you have accepted your future with half as much trouble as the fact that I have discovered the existence of my daughter. I cannot help but wonder why this is."

Sakura blew a raspberry, collapsing her arm underneath her and laying back down. "It doesn't seem like I have a choice in the matter. If your leader has made it so obvious that this is what he plans, then it's either I acquiesce or I die. I'm not much use to Regen dead, and I can serve Konoha from behind enemy lines if I am drafted in," she said nonchalantly, and Itachi narrowed his eyes.

"If you wanted to help Konoha, why did you not return after you ran? It is what I thought you would do, it is why I took you aside that night. I had to take alternative measures because you never did. Why are you in Rock if Fire is where you want to be, a place you feel obligated to serve?" he inquired, and Sakura went abruptly still, her eyes troubled and heavy. There was silence for a few moments before she spoke again, and when she did her voice cracked, like she was just barely holding back tears.

"They wouldn't have understood. My friends would have advised me against it, my family would have tried to talk me out of it, and the rest would have shunned me for not listening. The people of Konoha would not have accepted the child of a traitor, no matter which Uchiha the father was, and I refused to even think of aborting or to take any chances that Regen would grow up being hated and feared."

Itachi stared following Sakura's reluctant answer, watching her quietly from his position with something indefinable in his gaze, something like understanding and admiration, before turning to face the ceiling and closing his eyes.

A comfortable silence fell between them while they rested, not necessarily touching but also not apart, and Sakura was actually drifting off to sleep before she remembered why she had been so shocked by Itachi's sudden appearance, and something that had been off in his questioning of why she was hiding out here.

Opening her eyes and sitting up, she looked over at the man lying beside her with her pulse picking up slightly, breath sticking in her throat as she fed chakra into her hand and reached over towards his still bare chest. Carefully, so as not to disturb the seemingly sleeping man, she touched her fingertips to his chest and spread them over his rib cage, probing beneath his skin with her chakra and letting it run over the surface of and within his lungs.

Before she had initially slept with Itachi, he had told her that one of the main facets of his plan hinged on the disease seated deep within his chest cavity, a draining and deadly ailment that made him cough up blood, exhausted his strength and health, caused him constant and debilitating pain, and would eventually kill him.

He needed the illness, as it would make him weaker and weaker as time went on, and if Sasuke were to ever have a chance of defeating him, he would have to be as weak as possible when the time to fight came. She had wanted to check on it herself, to see how far the disease had progressed, but she never got the chance and had fled before seeing if Itachi had gotten any worse. He should have been dead long before now, if not by Sasuke's hand, then by the progression of the lethal illness.

He was here, very much alive, and obviously in the peak of health, so she had to assume that something had changed. And change it must have, because she did a sweep of not only his lungs, but his heart, stomach, and the rest of his organs as well; there was no sign of any sort of disease within his body.

Eyebrows furrowed, she circled back to Itachi's lungs, looking again with even more attention. The disease might have metastasized to the…

"Everything present and accounted for?"

Shocked at the coolly amused voice coming from the assumedly sleeping male and at being discovered, Sakura snatched her hands away and shrank back from his suddenly open eyes, shifting guiltily as she scooted away from his side. "I… I'm sorry… I didn't mean to…" she started, tripping over her words as she tried to find some way to explain herself, but Itachi interrupted, scoffing and rolling his eyes.

"You didn't mean to get caught, I think you mean. It is alright, I am not offended by your interest, but I would prefer you to ask me if you have questions regarding my health. What is it that you were looking for?" he asked passively, and Sakura swallowed, twisting her hands together around her knees in her position on the edge of the bed.

"I was just… I was curious about… the tuberculosis. You said that you wouldn't last another year, the night that we… and you're here, so… I was checking to see, and there's nothing there. You're perfectly healthy. What happened to it?"

Itachi's body tightened slightly, his gaze suddenly hard as he regarded her, before he relaxed and lay back easily, gesturing for her to lie down too. "If you are curious about that, then you might as well hear everything that you've missed while you've been in hiding. I'm sure you don't receive much information this far north," he offered as Sakura hesitantly lay down next to him, and she shook her head in response, expression expectant of the tale he offered.

He smirked softly at her excitement before starting, turning to look at the ceiling with clouded eyes. "A good place to begin would be the night that you escaped, I imagine… as you know, the reason that you were able to flee was because Sasuke and his inept team attacked the Akatsuki base. What you may not be aware of is that he came that night to free you."

Sakura stared incomprehensibly, not understanding. "Sasuke came to… free me? Why? He's never… he had his own agenda, and… he wasn't there for you?" she asked, blown away by the information, and Itachi shook his head, reaching his arms up to fold them beneath his head.

"He had heard that we had captured you for the errand of baiting the Kyuubi container, and flew into a rage. He firmly believed that we had no right to drag you into the middle of the fight, that you had to remain within the walls of Konoha, where you would be safe. He has a hard heart, and is often foolish in the way he accomplishes his errands, but in his own way, he cares for you, and he couldn't bear the thought that you were being tortured and used in the way that you surely were. When the attack started, he sent his lackeys as a main force to draw attention to the front gate and he himself approached from the side, intending to sneak through the rear entrance while most of the Akatsuki were distracted. I imagined that he would do this and was on my way to intercept him when I saw you fleeing."

Sakura nodded, making a continuing motion with her hand, and Itachi went on. "When I apprehended him, he immediately demanded your release and threatened destruction of all that we stood for if we did not comply. I was taken aback that he made no move to exact his vengeance on me, as he was so wont to do when we had met before, and asked him why. He told me as I have told you, and was obviously far more concerned with your well-being than with his lifelong goal. I was surprised by this, far more than I am used to being, and I could not stop myself from telling him that you were already fleeing, that I had just seen you escaping through the woods to the north and had not tried to stop you."

"He was confused by why I would do that, or why I would tell him, if all I was concerned with was his and this world's destruction. We could talk no more after I told him this news, as the battle had traveled too close to us to avoid, but after our meeting he no longer seemed as intent on destroying me. We met often, but not on the violent terms that we used to; he would ask me things about our past, questioning me and cross checking me and seemingly judging me shrewdly."

"It was not long before he seemed to no longer believe that I was the evil man that he once thought that I was, and turned away from the path that he had taken by defecting from Konoha and joining with Otogakure. He killed Orochimaru and his loathsome assistant Kabuto, but not to attain more power; he did so to rid the world of their taint. I was proud of him for the first time in years, but was unsure how to proceed with my plan now that he was no longer trying to kill me. I had been worried by this, and had begun to try to think of some other way I could right the wrongs within Konoha with the time that I had left in my life when my illness came to light."

Itachi sighed, unconsciously moving his hand down to trace his fingers along a long, thick, and knotted scar that Sakura had not noticed before trailing down the length of his abdominals, starting just below his heart, twisting across his stomach and ending just above his right hip.

"Many of the members of the Akatsuki fear me; they think me unstable and too powerful for my own good. Thus they stay away from my rooms and avoid contact with me if they can. I used this to my advantage as my disease grew worse; I no longer hid my coughing in the late hours of the night and early morning, as it brought a slight amount of relief to me. But I was careless, not counting on being overheard as I was confident in the power of my reputation, and was caught in the middle of a coughing fit by Leader-sama himself. He had come to give me a mission, having been unable to find anyone else to do it due to unwillingness or absence, but was distracted by my condition. He was very… _displeased_ with my misleading him," he said softly, the tone of his voice leading Sakura to believe that the memory of the discovery actually scared him.

And anything that scared Itachi would be enough to terrorize any other person for the rest of their lives.

"What did he do?" Sakura asked quietly, eyes wide, and Itachi's throat grew tight, his hand shivering to a halt as it traced over the scar on his stomach.

"He punished me as he saw fit; the details are unnecessary. After he was satisfied that I had been put in my place and would never try to deceive him again, he sent for the most proficient medic that he could find and ordered them to heal my disease as well as mend the wounds he inflicted, though only enough so I would not perish. He wished for me to always remember the severity of what I had done, and told me that the next time he discovered even the slightest of ruses… I would be killed without mercy," he explained, and Sakura looked with dawning horror at the evidence of the old injury he was fingering.

"It must have taken ages to heal by itself… and been incredibly painful. Your leader is obviously not a forgiving man, and yet you intend to hide Regen from him. If he finds out…" she muttered worriedly, and he nodded solemnly.

"If he discovers her, especially if he finds out that you bore her, he will kill me. It is a risk I am willing to take, however; my life for her safety would be a small price to pay, and I am sure you would go to the same lengths. She must live on to her full potential. But this is not the only thing I am hiding from him, and concealing my daughter pales in comparison to the betrayal I have planned for him. I am sure that my death will be neither quick nor painless should he find out about it before it comes to fruition."

Sakura gasped at this information, scooting closer to Itachi's side and gazing over at him deferentially. "You gave up on your old plan, then? What are going to do now?" she queried urgently, and Itachi smiled wanly, obviously discontented with something.

"I _had_ to give it up. My illness was healed, my brother no longer wished to revenge himself on me… The remainder of my life was supposed to be short but meaningful, and now I had to make something of myself that would be much more long lasting. I had to come up with a new plan of action to root out the evil within Konoha's walls while at the same time preventing the Akatsuki from accomplishing their ends. There were few ways that these things could be accomplished, especially by someone of my stature in the bingo book, so I chose the one most likely to succeed and the least likely to get me killed before it could flourish; I went to Konoha and paid a visit to the Hokage. The similarities between the two of you are striking, by the way."

Sakura blushed lightly at this, biting at her lip and averting her eyes. "I don't know about that... Tsunade-shishou is one of the best medics in the world, and is one of the three Saanin," she muttered abashedly, and Itachi chuckled.

"Perhaps, though from what I have heard, you have already surpassed her prowess in the medical field. But your skill as a medic wasn't what I was referring to… as soon as she saw me, she tried to punch me through a wall," he explained with wry amusement twisting his tone, and Sakura shoved her hand against his shoulder indignantly at the slight on her control. He laughed again, letting her push him, and it was at that moment that Sakura realized what this would have looked like to an outsider.

Two people, lying together completely naked after having sex for an hour, laughing and playfully teasing one another while discussing something serious…

This was what a couple in love looked like.

Sakura's throat tightened, her heart leaping into her mouth and her blood rushing through her veins quickly. Itachi wasn't the sort of person to just… do this. He had never, as far as she knew, showed this much leniency towards someone. He certainly hadn't chatted with her after having sex with her the first time, or referred to the quirks in her personality in any way but complete seriousness.

Her previous thoughts on his feelings towards her had been mere ponderings, not really proceeding past the stage of hopeful contemplation, but now… lying beside him and basking in the afterglow of extremely satisfying sex while deliberating plans to save the world… maybe it really was possible that he cared for her. She knew that she felt something for him, and since it had been half a decade since her imprisonment, she knew it wasn't just Stockholm syndrome. What she felt was real, so…

What if he felt something real too?

While Sakura had been thinking, Itachi had continued on with his story, and she came back to reality to him saying, without much inflection, "…and she seemed to accept that, for one reason or another. She is too trusting, your Hokage, but perhaps she knows more than she lets on. I wouldn't be surprised. In any case, we devised a plan to lure out the true leader of the Akatsuki, using your friend Naruto as bait. He has remained elusive for a long time, much to Leader-sama's consternation, and were I to present him with the Kyuubi container at long last, he would be highly pleased. All the members of the organization would be required to be present so that we could perform the extraction process, as the Kyuubi is the most powerful and most well bound of the tailed beasts, and that does not exclude my great uncle. Once the abstraction had begun, forces from Konoha would be deployed to ambush the base and, hopefully, overtake most of the members before they regained their own minds and before Naruto had been drained of his life. It is a good plan, one that requires little work but much secrecy, and we have decided that, in the coming months, the best way to proceed would be with this plan in mind. You would have a significant role in this plan, if you chose to assist me, and Sasuke will also get what he has wanted for so long… revenge on the mastermind behind the worst night of his life."

Sakura perked up at the mention of her old teammate, though not understanding what he referred to him for. "Sasuke will be there too? Why? I thought that you said he didn't want to kill you anymore," she asked in confusion, trying to beat back her pleasure over his inclusion of her in his plans, and Itachi inclined his head.

"That I did, and it remains true. The intricacy of the explanation required for you to understand why I am not the person he seeks vengeance on is much too convoluted for me to want to delve into at the moment, however, so just know this; Madara, my great uncle, is his target," he said significantly, and Sakura nodded in faux understanding before stopping, looking back over at him suspiciously.

"How do you know that?" she queried, and Itachi gave her a sarcastic look from the corner of his eye. "Because he told me. This plan of action that I am constructing requires many skilled participants if it is to succeed, and the past few months of my time have been dedicated to informing those who would make a difference, my brother numbered notably among their ranks. He was on a mission for the Hokage when I last met with him, guarding the Village Hidden in the Mist from a rogue ninja attack."

This news surprised Sakura to the point of incredulity, making her reach out to grasp at Itachi's arm in her shock. "For… for Tsunade-shishou? Does that mean that he returned to Konoha?" she asked desperately, and Itachi gave her a long, calculating look before nodding.

"He has been in the service of Leaf for some time now. It took some time for him to be trusted again, after his first betrayal, but he has proved his worth. Why? Do you feel that, after his attempts on your life, he does not deserve the opportunity for a second chance?" he asked coldly, and Sakura shook her head, withdrawing her hand and folding her arms around herself while a slow smile pulled at the corners of her lips.

"No. I… I always hoped he would return. I never gave up on him going back, on him coming to his senses and seeing that there are things more important than trying to kill an innocent man. You have no idea the weight off my mind it is to hear this…" she whispered quietly, and Itachi looked genuinely surprised, obviously not having been expecting her answer.

"That's right… you love him. You wouldn't have given up on him, would you?" he directed pointedly, something heavy in his voice that sounded, simultaneously, like gratitude and possessiveness.

Sakura sighed, blushing slightly at the turn in the conversation but shaking her head negatively. "I did, a long time ago. But I was a young girl, drawn to his power and mystery like a moth to flame. I overcame my obsession with him once I understood that, but I still consider him one of the closest friends I have ever had. I knew, deep down, that he was a good man that bad things had happened to, just like you, and I hoped that he would see the light no matter what he tried to do to me or how cruel he was in his blindness."

Sakura grew quiet after this admition, inwardly cursing at herself for revealing too much about her innermost emotions, and Itachi considered her answer for many long moments before nodding his understanding of her response and continuing. "It is ironic that we speak of this, actually… because when I spoke with him of my plans, he brought you up."

Sakura laughed in surprise, raising her eyebrows and tilting her head curiously. "Really? What about?" she probed, and he shrugged, lifting the hand that wasn't under his head and inspecting his black fingernails.

"He wanted to know if I had heard anything about you in my travels and information seeking. He has been searching for you in the time he has had to spare, worried that you never returned to Konoha after you fled, and thought that I might know something since I had shown such interest in you the night of your escape. He is convinced that I am in love with you."

Sakura's heart seized in her chest as the words left Itachi's lips, her eyes wide as she stared at his profile. The air surrounding her became difficult to breath, like she was suddenly stuck beneath ninety feet of water and couldn't rise to the surface quickly enough. This was the moment of truth, and if her courage didn't fail her, she would know how he felt.

Barely fearing the possibility of being turned aside in her condition, she swallowed heavily and licked her lips before asking the question she had been waiting to ask for most of the night. "…are you?" she inquired, her voice so tiny that it would have been inaudible if not for the overbearing quiet that had fallen over the late hour of night they reposed in, and when Itachi turned his head in response to her question, he saw every emotion she was feeling, every answer to any question he could have asked her regarding her query, written plainly across her face and shining from her hopeful eyes.

His instant response was a laugh of consternation, as if he couldn't believe that she could actually think that he would feel so deeply for her, before a judging glare overcame his eyes and his face smoothed into lofty indifference, Sakura's heart sinking farther from its high-strung position with each indication that she had been wrong.

"Don't be a fool, Sakura," he scoffed, snorting and waving a hand in dismissal. "This is not a fairy tale. Did you really think that I would be so smitten during our few encounters? I did not fall for you when I kidnapped you. I did not trust you with my real intentions because I was in love with you. I felt no love for you after I had sex with you. I do not love you for bearing my offspring. I do not love you now, after we have had sex again," he said harshly, without a hint of remorse for the hardness of his words or for the cruelty of what they did to her heart, and Sakura immediately turned away, sitting up and groping along the floor for her wayward clothing.

She had had enough, and she didn't want the embarrassment of Itachi's dismissive reprimands. She really _was_ a fool. Had she thought that he could love her, or even _like_ her? She was… was _nothing_ to him…

Lost in her bitter thoughts as she was, she didn't notice Itachi sitting up and scooting over to intercept her, but she _did_ notice the restraining arm he slid around her waist.

Sakura struggled against his hold as soon as she felt it, trying to slide out of his grasp so he wouldn't see the tears building in her eyes, but he didn't allow it, anchoring her to his side and staring down at her seriously. "Cease your struggles. I was not finished," he commanded, firming his grip until she couldn't have moved if she tried, so she stopped trying to escape and stared with heavy embarrassment at her lap, fighting the tears as best she could.

"I don't want to hear any more. You don't care about me, I mean nothing to you… fine. I get it. You've communicated your point, and I understand. Now leave me alone," she whispered, but he shook his head, tightening his hold on her when she tried to pull away again.

"I will not, because while I do not _love_ you, I also am not indifferent to you. I have never claimed to not care for you, or to feel nothing when in your presence."

Sakura froze, her eyes wide as she looked over her shoulder at him. Did he mean what she thought he did? Could there be some hope for them, for her want to be with him? As her struggles had stopped, Itachi took this as his sign to continue, leaning down and kissing Sakura's shoulder before continuing softly, the brutality of his former claims lessened by his tone.

"You asked me if I loved you, and the answer is no, I do not. I feel a kinship with you, I realize that you have lost much because of what happened and appreciate the grace with which you have accepted that, and I admire your courage and your skill, but I am not in love with you. You, however, seem to be blind to other feelings there are to be felt, and the potential for them to grow. Since you are so nearsighted, allow me to lay them out for you… For the care that you have given to my daughter, for the protection you rendered to her, and for what you sacrificed to give her the best life that you could, you have my eternal regard, gratitude, and appreciation. For defending what you believe in, for staying loyal to the bitter end, and for the kindness you show to your fellow man, I find myself admiring, highly appreciating, and respecting you. For never fighting for the wrong reason, for doing the best you can manage with what you have, and for never giving up on the hope that both my brother and I are better men than we deserve to have believed…" he trailed off, looking into Sakura's shell-shocked eyes deeply.

"For these things, and many others I would be glad to inform you of in the years to come, I think that I can and _will_ love you."

* * *

><p><em>And that, dear friends, seems as good a place as any to end it. …believe it or not, I didn't start this with the intention of it turning into… porn. XD for once, I actually kind of like it. Not very funny, and not very descriptive, but an interesting story. It's been bugging me for a while, like I said before, and I'm glad it's out of my head and in your faces. It's a little different than what I usually write, but epiphanies will be what they are.<em> _Hope you liked it, and please review to tell me whether or not you did. And now, back to what I'm supposed to be doing; writing the next chapter of Sasuke and Me._

_Hey, Ebony Captain: did you see? I used your word instead of mine. XD_


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